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This is a great moment for my players - Slimane

France coach Belmadi Slimane said that their 3-1 victory over Poland is a great moment for his players in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball Boys' U19 World Championship

Riffa, Bahrain, August 22, 2017 – France coach Belmadi Ben Slimane said that their brilliant four-set win against defending champions Poland in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball Boys’ U19 World Championship is a great moment for his players.

France coach Belmadi Slimane: This is a great moment for my players. They played well against a great team like Poland. Poland needed to win to stay alive in the competition, so they gave it their all. It was a little bit odd in the first set, but after that we changed our attitude. When we did that, we were a little bit better in defence, attack and in every aspect of the game.

France captain Lucas Soldner: We have to win every single match to be able to win the competition. We need to prepare in each and every game and treat it like a final. We need to continue with this good spirit and stay focused until the end. It doesn’t matter which team we will be facing in the next round. We will be prepared.

Poland coach Maciej Zendel: This is sport. Today we tried but we lost again. We played much better. We made some mistakes but we tried our best. The French team was better in this game and that is why they won.

It is a very difficult situation when you lose day by day. For the players it is very difficult because you have in your head that you lost yesterday and then you lose again today. When you lose so many matches, it gets very hard to get up and play the next day.

Poland captain Szymon Jezierski: It was a good match but we lost when things turned serious in the end. We now have no chance to go to the next round. We are very disappointed because we are here to win the championship. We prepared well for two months before coming here, but I do not know what happened and we are very disappointed.